Six months faraway from Danny Boyle’s vapid, extremely caffeinated revamp of the zombie franchise that started with Cillian Murphy again in 2003, comes Nia DaCosta’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” a movie that feels not solely extra dialed in however extra humane. The second installment in a deliberate trilogy, it manages one thing most gory zombie flicks hardly ever even try, not to mention pull off: it has a coronary heart.
Sure, there’s bloodshed. Sure, there’s the occasional gory dismemberment. However DaCosta, working from a script by collection mainstay Alex Garland, dares to look beneath the carnage and picture what a zombie-infested world would possibly appear like if we stopped viewing the contaminated as pure monsters. As a substitute, “The Bone Temple” frames them as damaged individuals, misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and presumably, with the best remedy, able to seeing the world anew. It’s a surprisingly tender thought for a franchise constructed on terror and rage, and it’s one that offers this sequel its distinct id.
That’s a pointy proper flip for a collection that launched as probably the most unrelentingly terrifying apocalyptic movies of the twenty first century. This fourth entry actively subverts expectations, balancing bursts of deadpan humor with the lingering cruelty of a world nonetheless very a lot able to destroying itself. A throwaway apart explaining what the Teletubbies have been and the way they operate is laugh-out-loud humorous, but the movie by no means loses sight of how harmful people might be, particularly once they aren’t contaminated in any respect.
Enter Jimmy, a satanist cult chief performed with diabolical glee by Jack O’Connell. He leads a pack of impressionable kids who weaponize ritual, perception, and so-called “charity.” O’Connell is having a blast right here, chewing the surroundings simply sufficient with out tipping into parody, and I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I didn’t need to yell “Jimmmmmy!” in homage to his character in “Sinners.” It’s one of many movie’s bolder selections, and whereas it sometimes flirts with extra, DaCosta retains it grounded by emphasizing the actual hazard of ideology masquerading as neighborhood.
In comparison with Boyle’s jacked-up predecessor, which I loved however discovered exhausting in its relentless punk aggression, “The Bone Temple” feels calm, cool, and assured. DaCosta finds a formidable rhythm, weaving collectively a number of intersecting storylines with out shedding momentum . One follows Jimmy, revealed to be the eight-year-old boy from the opening of the earlier movie, now grown and absolutely unhinged, main a loyal cohort who’re additionally known as Jimmy, that, as you’ll bear in mind, intercepted Spike, performed by Alfie Williams, on the finish of the final movie after he left his homestead looking for broader horizons.
The opposite storyline facilities on Dr. Ian Kelson, portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in a stripped-down, no-frills efficiency that quietly steals the film. Fiennes performs Kelson as a person held collectively by conviction and iodine (he’s actually doused in it for defense), and guided by an nearly radical empathy. He varieties an unlikely bond with Sampson, an contaminated man or “Alpha” performed by former MMA fighter Chi Lewis-Parry, whom Kelson insists on treating as absolutely human. Sampson likes morphine and gazing on the moon, and there’s one thing oddly lovely in the best way the movie permits him that simplicity. He’s an actual one.
After all, these storylines finally collide, and once they do, DaCosta punctuates the second with probably the most absurdly refreshing needle drops in Iron Maiden’s “The Variety of the Beast.” The soundtrack selections all through are impressed with Radiohead and Duran Duran popping up as if to remind us that even the apocalypse deserves an honest mixtape.
Make no mistake, there’s loads of carnage. An early scene involving Jimmy’s model of “charity” is brutal and deeply unsettling, not for the squeamish or faint of coronary heart. However the actual power of “The Bone Temple” lies in how confidently DaCosta modulates tone, permitting the movie to ebb and circulation between ruthless violence and genuinely considerate meditations on the hive thoughts, perception techniques, and the human want for connection. It’s far much less hyper and erratic than Boyle’s earlier entry, and that restraint works to its benefit.
If there’s a criticism to be made, it’s that the movie sometimes trusts its concepts greater than its momentum, lingering only a beat too lengthy on its meditative stretches. However even that feels intentional, a refusal to hurry previous its themes in favor of spectacle alone. “The Bone Temple” stands as a stable, sturdy continuation of the franchise, one that means there could also be one thing higher ready on the horizon for these characters. Maybe the key to surviving the tip of the world isn’t brute pressure or blind rage, however the willingness to loosen up, embrace connection, and possibly even dance with the satan.
28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE is now taking part in in theaters.